Sara Sidle
by Malenkaya
Summary: He promised her she'd never have to be alone again. GSR. Spoilers for Living Doll, and a couple of episodes.


Title: Sara Sidle

Author: Malenkaya

Rating: PG (or whatever the equivalent)

Feedback: Yes, please.

A/N: I wrote this for a school assignment, and thought I might as well post it. It's my first try writing anything CSI-related, so reviews are very much appreciated. Feel free to critique as well.

_**SARA SIDLE**_

"Lonely". That's the way Sara describes her childhood. She doesn't talk about friends, or family barbeques, or anything even relatively normal. Her eyes grow dark when she brings it up, and he can suddenly see it—that solitary shroud which surrounds her, like she's not really here, but back where she came from. He promises she'll never have to be alone again, and she smiles at him, one of those rare, full-on Sidle smiles.

"The Sidle Smile". It was Nick, he thinks, that came up with the name first. Whoever it was, it's appropriate—Sara's smile is infectious, a bursting ray of light that explodes across her face like it can not be contained. The brightness of her eyes, corners crinkled like they're laughing; the endearing gap between her two front teeth, the way she looks at you, like the two of you are sharing an intensely private, immensely amusing secret no one else knows.

He wonders if she smiled like that when she was a child. Her childhood wasn't a happy one—an abusive father, helpless mother, distant brother. He pictures Sara, with her hesitant uneasiness when she's trying to please someone, and that almost defiant frustration when she can't. He knows she was solitary, kept to herself and read books; that she was too smart for her age, got teased in school. It's one of the many things they have in common. The more he thinks about it, the more he wonders what reason she had to smile like that back then, what could have possibly brought her that much joy?

"You wouldn't know that at my house. The fights, the yelling, the trips to the hospital. I thought it was the way that everybody lived." The words paint a picture—he can suddenly understand the complete lack of familiarity she feels towards the people around her, the way she flies off the handle whenever she works a case involving domestic violence. She won't cry for herself, but she cries for the victims of every case she works. Maybe she sees herself in them. Maybe she strives to protect them, remembering that nobody was there to protect her.

"When my mother killed my father, I found out that it wasn't." When the cops invaded her house. When they took her mother to prison. When her brother took off, when Sara went from foster home to foster home, nobody interested in an emotionally detached, uncertain child when there were so many fresh, innocent children to choose from. This is Sara's childhood. From a chaotic, endless cycle of fear, and abuse, and loneliness to fear, and confusion, and still, loneliness.

Knowledge. This is what she took refuge in. She might not connect to her foster families, or attract a group of friends at school—but the library was always open, the books were always welcoming, and always, there were questions. Questions, and answers she was willing to search the world to find.

These are all things Sara has told him, little by little. Stories that he has expanded upon, added in images, events to fill in the blank spaces based on the woman he knows now. It wasn't until years later, when Sara was attending Harvard, that he actually met her. He was teaching a seminar—she sat in the front row, her intelligent eyes following his every move. He could practically predict her hand shooting up into the air, but could never predict the quick, insightful questions she shot at him, the eager curiosity in her eyes enthralling him even as he stammered for an answer, totally thrown by this bright new student. Sara. His star pupil.

They kept in touch, even when he left Harvard to return to Vegas, and she moved back to San Francisco, both of them working as crime scene investigators. He thinks, then and now, that the job suits her. Not just because of her boundless curiosity, or her formidable determination, but because of the commitment she holds herself to solving each crime, not for herself, but for the victims. Sara was—Sara is—a crusader. When Holly Gribbs is attacked, he is hastily promoted, and everything he's been working for falls to pieces around him; he needs help, and she is the first person he calls.

They've always kept in touch, but for the next three years, he gets to work with her, side by side. Gets to really know her. He finds out that she sings—always, everywhere. Hums in the labs while she runs fingerprints through CODIS, and sings softly under her breath as she drives to a crime scene, sunglasses low over her freckled nose as she stares at the road ahead. He's careful never to comment on it—once she realizes she's doing it, Sara usually stops.

When she's mad, Sara tends to forget that other people have feelings, too. She shouts, argues, accuses—she doesn't embarrass easy, and she doesn't care how many people are watching as long as she gets her point across. This is normal. He has met a number of people with tempers like Sara's. What makes her different is the fact that she never apologizes: Sara never says something she does not mean.

She works doubles and triples, and once she has maxed out on a month's worth of overtime in two weeks, she inevitably winds up outside his office, smiling that Sidle Smile and pleading for more work. In the end, he usually gives in—he's always had a hard time saying no to Sara.

The one time he says no to her, everything changes. He isn't blind. He knows that he and Sara have been dancing a fine line for awhile now, flirtation and hidden meanings. They share a past, and now they're building a future, but when she finally takes the next step and asks him to dinner, he doesn't even consider his response before it slips out of his mouth: "No". Just that. "No". He is her supervisor; this is his career, and he doesn't know what to do. Sara doesn't seem impressed with his uncertainty, his weighing of every pro and con. It doesn't surprise him. Sara has always been more straightforward in that way.

Two years later, when they almost lose Nick, nothing has changed. It took him years to realize what Sara knew from the beginning: that life is short. That any moment could be his last, and how important it was he take every happiness he could find in life. She's at his house after they visit Nick at the hospital—she's crying, not for herself, because she never cries for herself, but for Nick and all they almost lost that night—and in a sudden blur, he looks at her, really _looks_ at her, and kisses her, and they pick up right from where they left off so many years ago.

He gets to know Sara Sidle intimately. Hears that soft, thoughtful voice with it's Valley Girl lilt so at odds to her formidable intelligence every morning, every day, every evening. Watches her whisper to him, and can practically see her thinking, considering each word before it slips out of her mouth. Knows that she hates to rush anything—that she'll leave clothes strewn on the floor in their bedroom, but if she gets called into work and has to leave the dishes she was washing sitting in the sink, she'll be mad about the mess. She's afraid of the dark, but attached to his tarantula the way most women attach themselves to a cat. On days off, she curls up into the couch and reads crime novels, scoffing at the inaccuracies and laughing at her own criticisms—when he comes in from work, she looks up at him and smiles, and says, her mouth still twisted up in that funny, almost laughing smile, "Hey."

Some things are just like they always were. When Sara's sick, she works harder. When she's tired, she stays up later. When she's frustrated, she clings tenaciously to what she has accomplished so far and insists on continuing it. Now that they are together, he looks after her. It makes her uncomfortable, and he realizes she's never had someone to look after her before. It's all in that uneasy smile: that uncertainty, the surprise that he cares enough about her to do this; and the sudden warmth, when she finally understands it.

The last time he spoke to her was work related. Crime related. Nothing new, but he regrets it now—if these are the last words he ever speaks to Sara, they should mean something. They should be about Sara. The Sidle Smile. How perfect she looks when she first wakes up, and looks at him with half-lidded eyes and a slow smile. Her warm laugh, the freckles splashed across her shoulders. He should have told her he loved her—he so rarely does, and she is so patient with him, understanding not everyone is as confident in their opinions and emotions as she always seems to be.

These are the things he thinks about now. Now that she's gone, kidnapped by some homicidal maniac with a grudge against _him_, and all he can think about is these little things, pointless things. Little memories that won't bring him any closer to finding her. Things that are blessed, somehow, in retrospect, when he closes his eyes and all he can see is Sara's body, crumpled under a car in the middle of the desert, helpless, and—alone.

He promised her she'd never have to be alone again.


End file.
